AT WORK WITH: Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper; The Fit Commandment

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TO eat lunch with Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, whose 1968 book, "Aerobics," helped start the fitness movement, is intellectually provocative but hardly sensuous. Dr. Cooper, who has written 10 books, more than 10 million of which are in print in the United States alone, eats the way he exercises -- with the strictest discipline.

It was 2 in the afternoon, lunchtime at the 30-acre Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas, which includes a clinic, a health club, a hotel and the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research. At the cafeteria, Dr. Cooper chose the same lunch he has every day: a cup (not even a bowl) of soup, salt-free crackers and unsweetened iced tea. (Prisoners probably have more variety.)

Dr. Cooper found a table on the terrace, beneath cloudless blue skies on an 80-degree day, and began eating his soup -- black-eyed peas in a tomato base -- slowly, with neither enthusiasm nor disdain. For him, eating is a basic task, rather like breathing. He would not make a good restaurant critic.

His breakfast, he says, is also unvarying: a grapefruit, a bran muffin, skim milk and a cocktail of vitamins C and E and beta carotene. Dinner, by comparison, is almost extravagant: fish or chicken, and greens like spinach, turnip greens, cabbage or brussels sprouts. Only at night, and then only five nights a week, does he commit a dietary sin: with a glass of skim milk, he eats a few chocolate chip cookies.

For Dr. Cooper, discipline has had its rewards. He is 64 and, at 6 feet 1 inch tall, weighs a taut 170 pounds. In 1960, when he graduated from the University of Oklahoma Medical School, Dr. Cooper, a former athlete, had become sedentary and had ballooned from 165 pounds to 204. He lost 34 pounds that year and has not gained back a single pound since.

He doesn't drink (but said that 10 drinks spread over a week is an acceptable level), smoke or eat red meat. Neither has he missed a day of work in nearly 40 years. He runs or speed-walks two miles in less than 30 minutes, four or five times a week. If it's late afternoon, he jogs. If it's close to bedtime, he takes a walk, cradling his dog, a Pekingese named Holly, in one arm. She's a five-pound weight who apparently adores being inert for two miles. "She doesn't move," he said. Dr. Cooper, whose staff calls him "the father of preventive medicine," needs his sleep; he avoids running late at night because it's too stimulating.

A self-described Type A personality, he was standing at a podium in the center's auditorium at 8 on a recent morning, talking to 20 policemen from all over the United States. They had spent a week at the center learning how to assess and increase their colleagues' fitness.

In front of the policemen, he was a preacher, and scientific data were his Book of Revelation. The commitment to health, he argues, is a "fitness conversion."

But as intense and confident as he is, he is not a dogmatist. "I've tried to be the guiding light," he said, "but I have had to change my recommendations based on undeniable scientific evidence."

In 1968, he believed that a high level of aerobic fitness (the maximum consumption of oxygen by the body) was a requirement for a long, healthy life and that to achieve it, people had to walk three miles in less than 45 minutes, five days a week, or run two miles in less than 20 minutes, four times a week.

But now he is convinced that people don't have to be aerobically fit to stay healthy. To exercise for health, but not for aerobic fitness, he recommends walking two miles in 30 minutes, three times a week, or walking two miles in 40 minutes, five times a week as he does.

He also thinks people should eat fish and chicken instead of red meat, limit fat and salt and take a daily "antioxidant cocktail" of vitamins E and C and beta carotene to fight an excess of free radicals, or unstable oxygen molecules, which can damage the body. Free radicals, he said, can come from cigarette smoke, air pollution or excessive exercise.

In the 1980's, he began to question the benefits of intensive training, in part because in 1984, his friend Jim Fixx, author of "The Complete Book of Running" and a marathoner, died of a heart attack. In 1990, Dr. Cooper saw a study of the 2,300 runners in the 1987 Los Angeles Marathon indicating that 40 percent had a cold or the flu during the two months preceding the race. In 1989, the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research released its own study that showed that people could be healthy without being aerobically fit.

"Overtraining might not only be unnecessary, but might even be harmful," said Dr. Cooper, whose newest book, "The Antioxidant Revolution" (Thomas Nelson), examines the current research and offers his new prescriptions for fitness: moderation and vitamins.

Dr. Cooper is in a hurry to impart his message. When he speaks, the data -- personal and scientific -- pour out of his mouth so fast that no one, not even fit, alert policemen, can possibly jot it all down.

He told the story of Jim Fixx. He lambasted cigarettes. And he touted fast walking as a lower-intensity alternative to jogging because walking doesn't produce excess free radicals, or pulled ligaments. Yet, the exercise will result in better health.

He spoke of balance: "I'm not saying you shouldn't run, but there's a diminishing return! You've got to compensate with dosages of vitamins C, E and beta carotene!" On the blackboard, he wrote their food sources: papaya, cantaloupe, kale. As he wrote, he turned from the blackboard to exhort the class: "Get more spinach! Collard greens! Turnip greens!"

But people cannot always eat enough of the right foods to fight off the free radicals, so Dr. Cooper insists on the daily vitamin cocktail, which should be taken with a physician's approval. (A patient receiving anticoagulant therapy, for example, shouldn't take vitamin E because it, too, blocks clotting of the blood.)

An hour later, he had finished the lecture. To applause, he walked out of the auditorium and was immediately encircled by patients and staff. At his 30-acre complex for those who would be fit, he is a medical superstar. The people around him didn't tug at his sleeve, but they stood close by, patiently, waiting for a word of advice.

From Dr. Cooper, there are lots of words -- secular and spiritual. A Southern Baptist, he spoke at Billy Graham's 1974 evangelical rally in Rio de Janeiro, where 240,000 people filled Maracana Stadium. He told the crowd that the human body was the flesh-and-blood temple of God.

"Our charge is to care for all the assets God has given us, including our bodies," he said. God wants us to be fit, Dr. Cooper added, quoting from the Bible. "Isaiah -- 'We are to run and not be weary,' " he said. "When Jesus chose the disciples, he chose outdoorsmen who could walk from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem in that heat and that dry air." His message to the crowd in Rio de Janeiro is the message of his next book, "It's Better to Believe."

In 1993, Dr. Cooper left Bantam Books, which had published all nine of his books since 1968, and signed a million-dollar, three-book contract with Thomas Nelson Inc., a publisher of Christian books in Nashville. More than 77,000 copies of "The Antioxidant Revolution" have been sold since October; this October, Thomas Nelson is to publish "It's Better to Believe," in which Dr. Cooper blends spiritual motivation and physical fitness.

At the Cooper Aerobics Center, people can begin the fitness conversion. Five thousand patients troop through the clinic each year, paying $1,200 for a six-hour examination that includes a stress electrocardiogram, cancer screening and in some cases, a CAT scan. Three thousand people belong to the health club, paying a $500 initial fee and $1,000 annually. There is even a two-week summer day camp for members' children.

After the lecture, Dr. Cooper relaxed for a few minutes in his office, where there are pictures of his family, who might be called the First Family of Fitness -- Millie, his wife and speed-walking companion of 35 years; their daughter, Berkeley, 29, a two-time marathoner, and their son, Tyler, 24, who ran a 4 minute 9 second mile in college.

Along with the family pictures and the assorted diplomas is a large-print edition of "The Living Bible." Billy Graham had just sent in his blurb for the jacket cover of "It's Better to Believe."

Then the doctor saw patients, some of whom are true believers in the Cooper way to fitness. Jim Tunney, 66, is a retired National Football League referee who has been Dr. Cooper's patient for 16 years.

"I want to die young at a very old age," said Mr. Tunney, who was beginning to huff and puff after 20 minutes on the treadmill. He wanted to stay on for 23 minutes, a minute more than he did last year. But he stopped at 22, and Dr. Cooper put his arm around his old friend, whose face was red and whose breath was coming hard, and said gently, "Cool down for five minutes."

Ever precise, Dr. Cooper probed.

"Skin cancer?"

"Had one taken off."

"Skin rash?"

"All gone."

"Numbness in fingers?"

"Gone to a masseuse -- a little carpal tunnel."

A half-hour later, Mr. Tunney had showered and changed and was running out of the building, as gracefully as he had run up and down the football field for 31 years.

And Dr. Cooper was on to his next patient -- speed-walking, not running.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section C, Page 1 of the National edition with the headline: AT WORK WITH: Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper; The Fit Commandment. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe